CAN POLITICIANS BARGAIN WITH BUSINESS - A THEORETICAL AND COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE ON URBAN-DEVELOPMENT

These authors examine the capability of local government to influence economic development by formulating a framework that treats state-busi ness relations as a bargaining process. This framework suggests that g overnmental influence is tied to the distribution of bargaining advant ages along three dimensions of a liberal-democratic political economy: market conditions, popular-control systems, and public-intervention m echanisms. The authors offer an explanation of how characteristics of these dimensions strengthen or weaken city governments in dealing with private enterprise; experiences of U.S. and Western European cities a re drawn upon to illustrate this. They conclude that differences in ba rgaining resources accounts for wide variation in local political cont rol of business development.